Soy Sauce Braised Chicken

OMG, this looked so good!  I absolutely had to give it a try.  The pictures of it sold me. I found the soy sauces and anise at the Asian market.  This sort of reminded me of when I first started cooking as a teen.  I'd make these whole chicken wings and I baked them in casserole dish with honey, garlic and soy sauce.  They were so ugly (wrinkly poached beige color) looking when they came out, but were delicious nonetheless (at least back then)...In hindsight, I think broiling them at the end would have made them appealing.  I had higher hopes for this!

I have a volcanic rock (I hope!) molcajete & tejolote  (on the left, below) I got while visiting Mexico and a granite mortar & pestle I bought here (Jamie Oliver, lol).

Neither are seasoned and have been sitting on top of my fridge for years.  I looked at them both today - and then decided the seasoning will have to wait...maybe when I retire...???  I'm going to follow this video when it's time to do the job.  I just fashioned my food processor today.  What I used:

• 1 bunch of cilantro stems (I could not find coriander roots in 2 Asian markets I checked - I will check farmer's market next time)

• 4 large garlic cloves, smashed
• 1 teaspoon whole peppercorns (I cracked these in a ziploc with a mallet first because I wasn't sure my processor would do the job)
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, plus extra to taste
• 2 tablespoons avocado oil
• 4 lb whole chicken
• 3/4 cup sweet dark soy sauce 
• 1/4 cup light soy sauce
• 3 whole star anise pods
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 teaspoons organic coconut sugar
• Water, as needed
• Kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper, to taste
• Cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped, for garnish

I put the garlic, stems, peppercorns and salt into the food processor and whizzed it.  I patted my chicken dry with paper towels. I left the elastic twine holding it together on too.  Thought it would cook better this way.  

In my dutch oven, I heated up the oil.  I mixed in the paste until fragrant.

Then I plopped the chicken in, breast side down and let it sit till a bit of the flavor wafted off it.  I then swished it around on the bottom of the pan some more as I didn't want to burn the paste.  I flipped it over and let the bottom absorb some of the paste too.  

I poured over the soy sauces and added in the cinnamon, sugar and anise.  The water went in next and this went up until the chicken was 3/4 covered.  

I brought to a boil, then lowered the heat to a low simmer and put the cover on.  This went for about 90 minutes, turning the chicken over half way through.  I wanted the whole thing to be covered with the soy sauce color, deep and rich.  And it WASN'T.  It kind of looked like my teen years of this...so I let it reduce  for 5 minutes, and then I let it broil, and then it still looked like my "teen honey garlic chicken"...  ☹

It was time to plate.  I just left my chicken in the dutch oven as I wasn't having company over and didn't need to make a showing of it.  There wasn't any showing anyway as the skin was mostly all gone.  I cut off the string.  I had roasted some yams that I served with mine and garnished with cilantro leaves, my son had roasted tater wedges with rosemary & garlic courtesy of Alexia, which he loves.  Truth be told, he left those wedges till last and the chicken was gone...

Again, the chicken was delicious - it tasted like Asian 5-spice and we both loved it.  Tender, fragrant, melt-in-the-mouth, but not glazed...Unfortunately I was disappointed with the look of the recipe, not the taste though.  I can buy soy sauce chicken in Chinatown cheaper, so I may not attempt this again...OR, if I do, I won't flip the chicken and hurt the skin...